A “shameful episode” and an “unacceptable situation”.
These are the words chosen in a press release by Joe Barone, general manager of Fiorentina, to describe the episodes of racist chanting observed on Sunday during the Serie A match Atalanta-Fiorentina (1-0).
La Fiorentina has called for the intervention of the public authorities to sanction the racist songs of which its owner Rocco Commisso has been the victim.
According to the Italian media, Rocco Commisso, born in Calabria, at the southern end of the Italian Boot, before migrating to New York where he made his fortune, was the target of songs mocking his origins in the Italian South.
In a country very divided between the industrial North and the disadvantaged South, slogans and songs targeting the inhabitants of the Mezzogiorno are considered acts of “territorial discrimination” and judged with as much seriousness as racist acts.
Fiorentina had been condemned in August
“Today, we have witnessed a shameful episode, not of a single individual but of a whole shift, writes Joe Barone, also Italian-American.
We fought racism in America and today, here in Italy, we are experiencing an unacceptable situation.
Joe Barone says he is "disgusted" by what happened on Sunday in the stands of the stadium in Bergamo, a city in the North.
Fiorentina, he adds, is demanding intervention from the Professional Football League but also from the government and the National Olympic Committee (CONI).
“We expect severe measures,” he insists.
In August, Fiorentina itself was fined 15,000 euros following songs from some of its supporters demanding an eruption of Vesuvius, the volcano which overlooks Naples, the main city in the South and, as such , the main target of “territorial discrimination”.
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